Sleep Problems In Middle Age Tied to Dissatisfaction

A new study suggests sleep problems often plague midlife adults who are only marginally satisfied with life.

In a review of nearly 4,000 adults, investigators discovered individuals with higher life satisfaction reported the ability to go to sleep faster than people who were less satisfied with life.

Prior studies have suggested that sleep onset delay among those with low life satisfaction could be the result of worry and anxiety.

In the study cohort, fifty-five percent were female and ranged in age from 17 to 74. A six-item life satisfaction survey was used to code participants as having low, medium, and high levels of satisfaction, and a subjective measure of minutes it takes to fall asleep was used to measure sleep onset latency (SOL) or the time it takes to fall asleep.

These findings support the idea that life satisfaction is interlinked with many measures of sleep and sleep quality, suggesting that improving one of these variables might result in improving the other.

“These findings support the idea that life satisfaction is interlinked with many measures of sleep and sleep quality, suggesting that improving one of these variables might result in improvement in the other,” said lead author Hayley O’Hara, a recent graduate of Ohio Northern University.

The research abstract was published recently in an online supplement of the journal Sleep and was presented at SLEEP 2015, the 29th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

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About Rick Nauert PhD

Dr. Rick Nauert has over 25 years experience in clinical, administrative and academic healthcare. He is currently an associate professor for Rocky Mountain University of Health Professionals doctoral program in health promotion and wellness. Dr. Nauert began his career as a clinical physical therapist and served as a regional manager for a publicly traded multidisciplinary rehabilitation agency for 12 years. He has masters degrees in health-fitness management and healthcare administration and a doctoral degree from The University of Texas at Austin focused on health care informatics, health administration, health education and health policy. His research efforts included the area of telehealth with a specialty in disease management.